AFTER a 20-year career in the building trade, 53-year-old Paul Buckley has started a completely new career path as a personal trainer.

Encouraged by his wife Trinity’s love of fitness, Mr Buckley has stopped selling heating equipment and now makes a living helping others reach their training goals at Top2Toe Fitness in Brook Farm, Bremhill.

The couple now plan to move to Andalusia in Southern Spain, where they will be offering intensive training holidays for amateur athletes.

Mr Buckley said: “It’s an exciting project for me and my wife. We hope to appeal to the fitness fanatics who want to train in a beautiful location with unlimited sunshine and offer them an all-inclusive holiday package which includes hard work and good food.”

A keen climber, Mr Buckley, began studying for his level 3 diploma in Personal Training from Premier Training International in 2014.

Before his career change, he had completed a number of his own outdoor challenges, peaking with the completion of the 2013 Everest Marathon – the highest marathon in the world.

His passion started in water sports and graduated to climbing and he has since completed six marathons and numerous shorter races.

When he started learning Mr Buckley had access to a set of clients through his wife’s business and started delivering exercise programs to the local community.

From his own fitness experiences, he was able to better understand the struggles that occur when attempting to get fit and feel healthy.

He said: “It was great to be able to get straight in to the business and put in to practice everything I had learnt from the course.

“The most important lesson I took from the six weeks was how to communicate the fitness specific knowledge with the client effectively.”

For more information on starting a training career visit www.premierglobal.co.uk